Rotators and X-Rays and Tears, Oh my!
I'm still sitting here thinking of polite ways to tell a doctor that he/she can shove cortisone injections up their... well, you know.
Yesterday morning I was at the shop filling my truck with freezing liquid CO2 before I was to head out to Kentucky for a route. Things were going unusually well. I typically have a little trouble with the liquid line that I have to attach to the truck for filling leaking a little, because I'm a small little girl lacking adequate upper body strength. Its never much of a leak, but I just can't really ever seem to get the hose screwed on tight enough to keep it from a little leakage.
Yesterday morning however, I screwed the hose on, gave it two tugs to ensure connection just as I always do and then proceeded with pump start-up procedures to begin filling the truck with the CO2. Once the pump was initialized I laughed to myself when I saw that there wasn't anything leaking at the fill bib. Satisfied that nothing was going to blow up while filling, I headed into the office a few paces away to work up my paperwork for the day.
Around twenty minutes later the filling was done and it was time to drain the lines and disconnect the hoses from the truck. As per usual the vent/vapor line that helps keep the internal pressure on the tank in balance while filling came off without a fuss. We have what we call a dog bone wrench that we use to loosen the hoses from the truck. Each end fits on of the hoses. The smaller is for the vent/vapor line and the larger is for the liquid line. I always use the smaller end to give the side of the hose bib's a tap or two to encourage it to come off easily.
After putting away the smaller hose it was time to disconnect the liquid line. I gave the hose bib a couple of taps (which are actually more like whacks, but taps just sounds better) and then fitted the large end of the dog bone around the bib. Now the liquid line is always harder to remove because of the nature of the liquid that runs through it during filling. It's freakin' cold people. In the double digits below zero actually. So things tend to get frozen together and typically need a little more coercion.
After giving it a couple taps and attaching the dog bone I then use my thickly gloved hand to tap the dog bone with a quick pop to loosen the hose. This usually works. Yesterday it didn't. So the first thing we are instructed to try is hot hot hot water. So I go into the bathroom and fill a cup with steaming hot water. I pour that over the hose connection and let it sit for a few moments. I then give the dog bone another whack.
Nothing. I then proceed with banging the dog bone with a monkey wrench (or other large item), which is step two in getting the hoses unstuck. Nada.
I got two more cups of water, poured and waited. Repeat steps one and two over and over again until I'm ready to scream. Step three for me is "call boss to find out his eta to the shop". It was gonna be a while before he would be in. Great. So he says the other route driver is running local today and he will call him and tell him to swing by to help.
During the wait for the other driver to show up I give the hose a few more tries and on what was the be my last and final attempt things went badly. I had taken to using body weight to try to get the dang thing to move. I had the dog bone firmly placed in a position that would allow me grab it with both hands and pull on it in such a way that used most of my body weight. I yanked and yanked and on the next yank I heard a loud pop!
Which was followed by excruciating pain that poured down my right arm, from shoulder to fingertips. I released the wrench and whimpered, trying hard not to cry because I didn't want the other route driver to see me red and wet faced. But damnit it hurt and I wasn't sure but that I dislocated the my shoulder or something.
The other driver arrived about fifteen minutes later and found me favoring my arm in the office. I explained what I had done and tried already and he said he'd go out and give it a try. He banged and whacked and tugged and pushed and pulled and nothing was working. Eventually however, the hose was lying on the floor and no longer attached to the truck.
BUT...
The hose itself was still clinging to a piece of the truck. He ended up having to take part of the trucks' fill line off to get the hose removed. Which means that until we either get a replacement part or the original piece dislodged from the hose there is no filling that truck. And if we can't get that piece out of the hose, no filling the other truck either.
I felt terrible. It's not like I did anything out of the ordinary. I'm wondering if it wasn't just time for the hose to malfunction. I followed the same steps I do every other day. The only thing that occurred differently today was the no-leaking thing while filling. I dunno.
Unhooked I was free to go, so even in pain I figured I'd better get a move on. So I hauled myself up into the truck using my left hand for support. As anyone getting in and out of a large truck on the drivers' side knows, the right hand is naturally the one you use for stability. Mine was useless so I was awkwardly making my ascent with my left. I whimpered loudly when I had to press the brake release in on the dash with my right hand. And boy it's hard to buckle your seat belt with your left hand.
I headed out and as the truck bumped along I realized it might be a bad idea to try to work. I made it to my fuel stop, which luckily is a place where I sit in the cab while someone else fills my tanks. As I sat there I wondered how I was going to open the back hatch on the tanker, pull out my hose, attach my hose to smaller tanks and then reel it all back up, most of which I do with my right hand. I wasn't sure it was gonna work.
When the tech was done filling my tanks I had to sign the receipt for it, as per routine I always grab my clipboard from the passenger seat. This proved to be quite difficult and very painful. At that point I decided that it was best to head back to the shop, drive home and then go see the doctor.
Within an hour I was sitting and waiting (for only about 20 minutes) at the local urgent care to be seen. The doctor painfully turned and twisted my arm, ordered x-rays and then prescribed me prescription strength Motrin to help with the inflammation. The x-rays showed that nothing was broken or dislocated, which was good. But the popping sound that my arm made as he had turned and twisted it and the pop which I described at the initial point of injury had him worried.
Now just FYI, I've had chronic shoulder pain for years. I dunno if I've mentioned it before but I do know I had some trouble with it while I was over-the-road. When I was in "Trucky" I had an incident where I was simply shifting from one gear to another when my shoulder popped loudly and left me in pain for weeks. Another time when I was cranking landing gear and a similar pop sent me inside one of our company terminals to the physical therapist.
So the doc informed me that with my history of pain and issues he was gonna work with my insurance company to see if they would approve an MRI. His thinking was that there might be issues with my rotator cuff, the set of three tendons that hold your shoulder in place.
Great. So of course I naturally went straight to the Internet to do some research about shoulder issues and injuries. From what I've read for just about any type of shoulder problem there is a set of steps that a doctor will want to try to remedy the problem before surgery is considered.
One of the steps involves cortisone injections. Which according to multiple websites can take "several days to really take effect, and then only lasts a couple of weeks". The most common side effect is "cortisone crystallization which causes pain great than the initial pain the patient was seen for".
Yeah, not interested. Plus I know plenty of people who have had these injections and reaped no benefit. It was merely another bill to be paid prior to the gigantic bill post surgery.
So anyway. I just got the call that I have an MRI scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I guess I'll know more after that. Right now, I'm just wondering about what the future holds. I don't think my wedding dress will look good with me in a sling. And how can I drink two handed on the cruise if I've got a broken wing? Bah... :o
Yesterday morning I was at the shop filling my truck with freezing liquid CO2 before I was to head out to Kentucky for a route. Things were going unusually well. I typically have a little trouble with the liquid line that I have to attach to the truck for filling leaking a little, because I'm a small little girl lacking adequate upper body strength. Its never much of a leak, but I just can't really ever seem to get the hose screwed on tight enough to keep it from a little leakage.
Yesterday morning however, I screwed the hose on, gave it two tugs to ensure connection just as I always do and then proceeded with pump start-up procedures to begin filling the truck with the CO2. Once the pump was initialized I laughed to myself when I saw that there wasn't anything leaking at the fill bib. Satisfied that nothing was going to blow up while filling, I headed into the office a few paces away to work up my paperwork for the day.
Around twenty minutes later the filling was done and it was time to drain the lines and disconnect the hoses from the truck. As per usual the vent/vapor line that helps keep the internal pressure on the tank in balance while filling came off without a fuss. We have what we call a dog bone wrench that we use to loosen the hoses from the truck. Each end fits on of the hoses. The smaller is for the vent/vapor line and the larger is for the liquid line. I always use the smaller end to give the side of the hose bib's a tap or two to encourage it to come off easily.
After putting away the smaller hose it was time to disconnect the liquid line. I gave the hose bib a couple of taps (which are actually more like whacks, but taps just sounds better) and then fitted the large end of the dog bone around the bib. Now the liquid line is always harder to remove because of the nature of the liquid that runs through it during filling. It's freakin' cold people. In the double digits below zero actually. So things tend to get frozen together and typically need a little more coercion.
After giving it a couple taps and attaching the dog bone I then use my thickly gloved hand to tap the dog bone with a quick pop to loosen the hose. This usually works. Yesterday it didn't. So the first thing we are instructed to try is hot hot hot water. So I go into the bathroom and fill a cup with steaming hot water. I pour that over the hose connection and let it sit for a few moments. I then give the dog bone another whack.
Nothing. I then proceed with banging the dog bone with a monkey wrench (or other large item), which is step two in getting the hoses unstuck. Nada.
I got two more cups of water, poured and waited. Repeat steps one and two over and over again until I'm ready to scream. Step three for me is "call boss to find out his eta to the shop". It was gonna be a while before he would be in. Great. So he says the other route driver is running local today and he will call him and tell him to swing by to help.
During the wait for the other driver to show up I give the hose a few more tries and on what was the be my last and final attempt things went badly. I had taken to using body weight to try to get the dang thing to move. I had the dog bone firmly placed in a position that would allow me grab it with both hands and pull on it in such a way that used most of my body weight. I yanked and yanked and on the next yank I heard a loud pop!
Which was followed by excruciating pain that poured down my right arm, from shoulder to fingertips. I released the wrench and whimpered, trying hard not to cry because I didn't want the other route driver to see me red and wet faced. But damnit it hurt and I wasn't sure but that I dislocated the my shoulder or something.
The other driver arrived about fifteen minutes later and found me favoring my arm in the office. I explained what I had done and tried already and he said he'd go out and give it a try. He banged and whacked and tugged and pushed and pulled and nothing was working. Eventually however, the hose was lying on the floor and no longer attached to the truck.
BUT...
The hose itself was still clinging to a piece of the truck. He ended up having to take part of the trucks' fill line off to get the hose removed. Which means that until we either get a replacement part or the original piece dislodged from the hose there is no filling that truck. And if we can't get that piece out of the hose, no filling the other truck either.
I felt terrible. It's not like I did anything out of the ordinary. I'm wondering if it wasn't just time for the hose to malfunction. I followed the same steps I do every other day. The only thing that occurred differently today was the no-leaking thing while filling. I dunno.
Unhooked I was free to go, so even in pain I figured I'd better get a move on. So I hauled myself up into the truck using my left hand for support. As anyone getting in and out of a large truck on the drivers' side knows, the right hand is naturally the one you use for stability. Mine was useless so I was awkwardly making my ascent with my left. I whimpered loudly when I had to press the brake release in on the dash with my right hand. And boy it's hard to buckle your seat belt with your left hand.
I headed out and as the truck bumped along I realized it might be a bad idea to try to work. I made it to my fuel stop, which luckily is a place where I sit in the cab while someone else fills my tanks. As I sat there I wondered how I was going to open the back hatch on the tanker, pull out my hose, attach my hose to smaller tanks and then reel it all back up, most of which I do with my right hand. I wasn't sure it was gonna work.
When the tech was done filling my tanks I had to sign the receipt for it, as per routine I always grab my clipboard from the passenger seat. This proved to be quite difficult and very painful. At that point I decided that it was best to head back to the shop, drive home and then go see the doctor.
Within an hour I was sitting and waiting (for only about 20 minutes) at the local urgent care to be seen. The doctor painfully turned and twisted my arm, ordered x-rays and then prescribed me prescription strength Motrin to help with the inflammation. The x-rays showed that nothing was broken or dislocated, which was good. But the popping sound that my arm made as he had turned and twisted it and the pop which I described at the initial point of injury had him worried.
Now just FYI, I've had chronic shoulder pain for years. I dunno if I've mentioned it before but I do know I had some trouble with it while I was over-the-road. When I was in "Trucky" I had an incident where I was simply shifting from one gear to another when my shoulder popped loudly and left me in pain for weeks. Another time when I was cranking landing gear and a similar pop sent me inside one of our company terminals to the physical therapist.
So the doc informed me that with my history of pain and issues he was gonna work with my insurance company to see if they would approve an MRI. His thinking was that there might be issues with my rotator cuff, the set of three tendons that hold your shoulder in place.
Great. So of course I naturally went straight to the Internet to do some research about shoulder issues and injuries. From what I've read for just about any type of shoulder problem there is a set of steps that a doctor will want to try to remedy the problem before surgery is considered.
One of the steps involves cortisone injections. Which according to multiple websites can take "several days to really take effect, and then only lasts a couple of weeks". The most common side effect is "cortisone crystallization which causes pain great than the initial pain the patient was seen for".
Yeah, not interested. Plus I know plenty of people who have had these injections and reaped no benefit. It was merely another bill to be paid prior to the gigantic bill post surgery.
So anyway. I just got the call that I have an MRI scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I guess I'll know more after that. Right now, I'm just wondering about what the future holds. I don't think my wedding dress will look good with me in a sling. And how can I drink two handed on the cruise if I've got a broken wing? Bah... :o
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